(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transceiver integrated circuit (IC) device for multi-channels, and a method of operation thereof.
(b) Description of the Related Art
As electronics for vehicles develop, many various electronic control units (ECUs) are increasingly provided within the vehicles. A method of controller area network (CAN) communication is mainly used for communicating between the ECUs. The CAN developed for a network within a vehicle is a communication method using a serial communication network, it interconnects various ECUs in parallel using two communication lines, and it processes information between the various ECUs according to priority. The ECUs interconnected in a CAN communication network check contents of transmitted messages and determine a priority of the transmitted messages through an identifier (ID). In addition, the ECUs are selectively input with corresponding messages according to the contents of the transmitted messages.
A priority between CAN nodes is determined based on bitwise arbitration, a node having the highest priority enters a transmission mode for transmitting a message, and nodes having other priorities become receiving modes for receiving messages. The nodes of the receiving mode are disabled until their turn. Some vehicles in product development and mass production may use a gateway for transmitting and receiving data between one network and the other networks. When the number of ECUs provided within a vehicle is substantially small, since the number of transmitted and received messages is then also substantially small, a specific ECU may perform a function of a gateway.
Recently, since the number of ECUs is rapidly increasing, a central gateway (CGW) has been developed and applied to process larger data between networks. The CGW is configured to receive data from one network, and use CAN transceiver chips therein to convert and transmit the received data to the other networks. For example, when the number of networks applied to a vehicle is 6, the number of CAN transceiver chips is also 6. In other words, as the number of networks is increased, the number of CAN transceiver chips is also increased. Accordingly, when the number of CAN transceiver chips is substantially large, a size of a controller for the CGW increases, which may cause a packaging problem within a vehicle.
The above information disclosed in this section is merely for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.